How Can You Poll a Broken Heart - the Robin Gibb Memorial BEE GEES TRACKS POLL RESULTS

The "If not you're just/Throwing stones/Throwing stones/Throwing stones" couplet from "Holiday" is possibly the single most melancholy moment in their massive catalog.

Just updated the Spotify playlist, fyi...

http://open.spotify.com/user/124420673/playlist/54TCvvJ2yOMoYxl2fu6mQ5

26. Lonely Days (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
103 points (5 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gpIcjNa1cqQ

Featured on the 1970 Bee Gees album "2 Years On", in the US it reached #3, their highest chart up to that point. Recorded on the same night as "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart?", immediately following their reunion.

So tempted to "TOO LOW" right now... :)

Didn't make my ballot.

yeah was kinda surprised this was the consensus track from 2 Years On. Also surprised it was their highest charting US single up to that point, that just seems bizarre. It's a bit stiff imho.

It's ALMOST such a great song, but it just falls short...like the verse and chorus are both pretty awesome, but they don't quite fit together; and then they just seem to get tired of the song by the end and start with that "wherewouldibewithoutmywoman" jokey delivery and, well...I still kinda love it. When they come back to the chorus the second time, that stomping beat just feels so huge and intense.

25. Emotion (Writers: Barry and Robin Gibb)
104 points (5 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mkTg1Cyun4

A 1977 single recorded by Australian pop singer Samantha Sang. Written by Barry & Robin Gibb and produced by Barry (who also provide backing vocals), the song was Sang's only hit single, reaching #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1978. It was intended for use in the 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, but ended up being featured in the film The Stud starring Joan Collins.

video cracks me up btw

24. Run To Me (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
106 points (6 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VctuC3-ko78

the leadoff single from the Bee Gees album To Whom It May Concern released in October 1972. "Run to Me" saw the Bee Gees return to the UK Top 10 after a three year absence, climbing to #9 while in the US it reached #16. Covered by Barry Manilow and Dionne Warwick, Brenda Lee, Jerry Vale, Johnny Mathis, Marie Osmond, Matthew Sweet and Susannah Hoffs, Oscar de la Hoya, and Sarah Vaughn.

Too low!

Oscar de la Hoya

I know. I lol'd

This is disappointing on several levels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT2_wpPAVOQ

The title track from the Bee Gees' 1979 album. Not issued as a single at the time of the album's release

In US, does that mean? I'm pretty sure "Spirits Having Flown" was a single in the UK.

yeah but that was later, for a charity thing

Oh OK. An underrated song, anyway - though not by ILM apparently :)

er wait, no it was one of their other late 70s bajillion sellers that was the UNICEF single, my mystake...

Though not issued as a single in conjunction with the parent album, it was issued as a single in the UK to promote the compilation Bee Gees Greatest, which was released in December, 1979.

I was thinking of Too Much Heaven

23. Spicks & Specks (Writers: Barry Gibb)
120 points (7 votes, 1 first place vote)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e88n68HviAE

The first single from the Bee Gees' 1966 Australian album "Monday's Rain". The album was subsequently quickly re-released as "Spicks and Specks" to capitalize on the success of the single. The success of "Spicks and Specks" across Australia, where it was a top-five hit in every state, propelled the Gibb brothers to move to England in 1967 to further their musical career.

Good song, but an odd choice for a #1.

Aussies...

:)

look, I will admit it was my typing-teacher's go to song in our typing class and because of hearing it EVERY week for an entire year it burrowed it's way into my head and I've loved it ever since then....even if it reminds me of repetitive typing drills whenever I hear it now

I stand by my choice

and Barry's big booming voice gives me chills

so there

22. Every Christian Lion Hearted Man Will Show You (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
123 points (5 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KzkIQonfk8

The B-side to "Holiday" in the US, taken from the Bee Gees' 1967 album "Bee Gees 1st". Covered by Killdozer & Alice Donut, Goon Moon (aka Twiggy Ramirez from Marilyn Manson + Chris Goss), the Flaming Lips, and Johnnie Young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18W4iHkrgRE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxFgiFGGo1I

The first place I ever heard the song was a cover by The Posies. Then bought Bee Gees' 1st. Then became lifelong Bee Gees stan. Thanks, Posies!

21. Melody Fair (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
128 points (6 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftI8XSMo4ww

Released in 1969 on the Bee Gees album "Odessa", and later featured in the 1971 movie "Melody". Scottish singer (and wife of Maurice Gibb) Lulu released a version as the title song to her 1970 album "Melody Fair".

The first place I ever heard the song was a cover by The Posies. Then bought Bee Gees' 1st. Then became lifelong Bee Gees stan. Thanks, Posies!

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, June 19, 2012 3:33 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah that was my introduction to the song, too. great heavy cover!

hmm dunno how I missed that one. a popular tune with the Gen X kids apparently

20. Heartbreaker (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
129 points (6 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW0S0-K3xlM

1982 single written and produced for Dionne Warwick, peaked at #10 on the Billboard Hot 100. Warwick admitted in The Billboard Book of Number One Adult Contemporary Hits by Wesley Hyatt that she was not fond of "Heartbreaker" (regarding the song's international popularity, she quipped, "I cried all the way to the bank"), but recorded it because she trusted the Bee Gees' judgment that it would be a hit. It turned out to be Warwick's most successful solo hit of the 1980s.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

Dionne Warwick not otm, Heartbreaker is awesome

Love the demo for this that Barry did. Some of his highest falsetto stuff.

19. Tragedy (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
145 points (8 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPcsMMEMbfw

Single from the 1979 Bee Gees album "Spirits Having Flown", reached #1 in both the US and the UK. For the explosion effect, Barry cupped his hands over a microphone and made an exploding sound. Several of these sounds were then mixed together creating the large boom heard on the record.

Barry Gibb, human beatbox

guitar on this is very proto-George Harrison to my ears

Some great footage of this song (specifically, the "explosion" overdubbing) being recorded in the In Our Own Time documentary (which is available on Netflix, for those who haven't seen it).

what is the most recent instance of this sort of squealing falsetto coming back into fashion...? It's such a strange vocal style that seems to periodically become popular (Four Seasons/Frankie Valli, Bee Gees, etc.) and then vanish.

Frankly I can only take so much of it, and Barry definitely over-did it imho (fucked up his back too, iirc)

18. You Win Again (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
149 points (8 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kses3SfG-lU

A single from the Bee Gees' 1987 album "ESP", it hit #1 n Britain, Ireland, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway, as well as making the top 10 in Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and Sweden. It also topped the Eurochart for 4 weeks. When this reached #1 on October 17, 1987 in the UK, it made the Bee Gees the first group to score a UK #1 hit in each of three decades: the 1960s, '70s, and '80s.

I had never heard of this song before this poll.

love!

17. You Should Be Dancing (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
152 points (8 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JoZS6LgqYI

A single by the Bee Gees, from the album "Children of the World" in 1976. The single hit number one for one week on the American Billboard Hot 100, number one for seven weeks on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart, and in July the same year, reached number five on the UK Singles Chart.[1] The song also peaked at number four on the Billboard R&B chart. It was this song that first launched the Bee Gees into disco stardom, and the first chart-topper in which Barry Gibb uses his now-trademark falsetto.

xoist it does have that slightly yuk mechanical 80's sound that I don't love, but it's just so goshdarn catchy I can't help loving it

You should be dancing? One word: HORNS

I guess the Scissor Sisters do the Barry falsetto... dunno how popular they are really. Does Timberlake ever do it, aside from the SNL parody? It's definitely in his range.

16. New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
153 points (8 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Z6_Ik7WrYY

The first Bee Gees song to be released in the United States, and their first song to hit the charts in the US[1] or UK. At the time, rumours circulated that the Bee Gees were The Beatles recording under a pseudonym (the Bee Gees' name was supposedly code for "Beatles Group"), in part because the record referenced NEMS Enterprises (Brian Epstein's management agency, which had just been joined by Bee Gees' manager Robert Stigwood).

According to the liner notes for their box-set Tales from the Brothers Gibb (1990), this song was inspired by the 1966 Aberfan mining disaster in Wales. In the second and third verses, the lyrical lines get slower and slower, as to indicate that life is about to expire for the miners.

Maurice Gibb recalled in an interview with Mojo magazine: "The opening chord doesn't sound like a conventional A minor. Barry was using the open D tuning he'd been taught when he was nine, and I was playing it in conventional tuning. It gives an unusual blend. People went crazy trying to figure out why they couldn't copy it."

In the movie Cucumber Castle – the movie that the Bee Gees starred in minus Robin Gibb – Maurice's character begins to sing this song while playing the banjo, only to end abruptly when a pie is thrown at his face.

15. I've Gotta Get a Message to You (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
154 points (8 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fAp2dJxycw

recorded by the Bee Gees in 1968, which became their second number-one single on the UK Singles Chart, and reached number eight on the US pop chart. In the UK the song was released as a single only. The song appeared on the US edition of the Bee Gees' third album "Idea".

Largely written by Robin, and intended originally for Percy Sledge (who did actually cover it later). Also covered by Swamp Dogg, Dusty Springfield, and Jose Feliciano.

14. Massachusetts (Writers: Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb)
165 points (10 votes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCQIXK0-FVU

Written and recorded in 1967, and originally intended to be recorded by the Seekers, this song eventually appeared on the Bee Gees' 1968 album "Horizontal". It was their first Number 1 hit in Australia and the UK and eventually became one of the best-selling singles of all time, selling over 5 million copies worldwide. Strangely, even though "Massachusetts" was a worldwide number one single, it only reached #11 in the United States in... the state of Massachusetts.

er that last part should have been struck

in the state of Massachusetts